The Foundations of Western Civilization

What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.

Iberia

Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener's enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards; he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know.

Spain: The Centre of the World 1519-1682

The Golden Age of the Spanish Empire would establish five centuries of Western supremacy across the globe and usher in an era of transatlantic exploration that eventually gave rise to the modern world. It was a time of discovery and adventure, of great political and social change - it was a time when Spain learned to rule the world.

Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states.

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight.

The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Antony Beevor has written a completely updated and revised account of one of the most bitter and hard-fought wars of the 20th century. With new material gleaned from Russian archives and numerous other sources, this brisk and accessible audiobook (Spain's number-one best seller for 12 weeks) provides a balanced and penetrating perspective, explaining the tensions that led to this terrible overture to World War II and affording new insights into the war - its causes, course, and consequences.

Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain: The Middle Ages Series

Drawing from both Christian and Islamic sources, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain demonstrates that the clash of arms between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula that began in the early eighth century was transformed into a crusade by the papacy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Successive popes accorded to Christian warriors willing to participate in the peninsular wars against Islam the same crusading benefits offered to those going to the Holy Land.

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

In the aftermath of World War II, Prussia - a centuries-old state pivotal to Europe's development - ceased to exist. In their eagerness to erase all traces of the Third Reich from the earth, the Allies believed that Prussia, the very embodiment of German militarism, had to be abolished. But as Christopher Clark reveals in this pioneering history, Prussia's legacy is far more complex.

The Basque History of the World

Inhabiting the small corner where France meets Spain, the Basque speak their own language, Euskera. Evidence of their culture showed up as early as 218 BC, and now, with a population of 2.4 million, their influence on our world has been all-pervasive. In this "delectable portrait of an uncanny, indomitable nation," listeners will be enthralled as Kurlansky delves into the roots of an intriguing population, and shows us why they continue.

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Conquerors tells the almost forgotten story of how Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India, and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire.

Spain - Culture Smart!

Spain - Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in Spain, ensuring that you arrive aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. This concise guide tells you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your Spanish hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Tales of the Alhambra: A Series of Tales and Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards

Written in 1831, Irving's dreamlike description of the Alhambra, the beautiful Moorish castle that defined the height of Moorish civilization, and the surrounding territory of Granada remains one of the best guidebooks to the region and one of the most entertaining travelogues ever written.

The Pursuit of Power: Europe: 1815-1914

Richard J. Evans's gripping narrative ranges across a century of social and national conflicts, from the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to the unification of both Germany and Italy, from the Russo-Turkish wars to the Balkan upheavals that brought this era of relative peace and growing prosperity to an end. The first single-volume history of the century, this comprehensive and sweeping account gives the listener a magnificently human picture of Europe in the age when it dominated the rest of the globe.

The Italians before Italy: Conflict and Competition in the Mediterranean

Take a riveting tour of the Italian peninsula, from the glittering canals of Venice to the lavish papal apartments and ancient ruins of Rome. In these 24 lectures, Professor Bartlett traces the development of the Italian city-states of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, showing how the modern nation of Italy was forged out of the rivalries, allegiances, and traditions of a vibrant and diverse people.

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge - a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker) - covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, listenable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history.

Homage to Catalonia

In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.

The American Civil War

Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.

The Reformation: A History

At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.

Medieval Europe

The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period - one not easily chronicled within a single book. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation.

The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World

Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions, and it was the appetites for foreign goods that drove economies and the growth of nations. From the first cities in Mesopotamia to the emergence of Greece and Rome to the depredations by the Mongols, the transmission of the Black Death, the struggles of the Great Game, and the fall of Communism - the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.

Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

For three crucial years in the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War dominated headlines in America and around the world as volunteers flooded to Spain to help its democratic government fight off a fascist uprising led by Francisco Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini. Today we're accustomed to remembering the war through Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Robert Capa's photographs. But Adam Hochschild has discovered some less familiar yet far more compelling characters who reveal the full tragedy and importance of the war.

Publisher's Summary

From bloodthirsty conquest to exotic romance, stereotypes of Spain abound. This new volume by distinguished historian Stanley G. Payne draws on his half-century of experience to offer a balanced, broadly chronological survey of Spanish history from the Visigoths to the present. Who were the first “Spaniards”? Is Spain a fully Western country? Was Spanish liberalism a failure? Examining Spain's unique role in the larger history of Western Europe, Payne reinterprets key aspects of the country's history.

Topics include Muslim culture in the peninsula, the Spanish monarchy, the empire, and the relationship between Spain and Portugal. Turning to the twentieth century, Payne discusses the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War. The book's final chapters focus on the Franco regime, the nature of Spanish fascism, and the special role of the military. Analyzing the figure of Franco himself, Payne seeks to explain why some Spaniards still regard him with respect, while many others view the late dictator with profound loathing.

Framed by reflections on the author's own formation as a Hispanist and his evaluation of the controversy about “historical memory” in contemporary Spain, this volume offers deeply informed insights into both the history and the historiography of a unique country.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who has the patience to listen closely to a deeply layered analysis of Spanish history. I found the academic tone of the work to be highly stimulating. This is no rough sketch such as you might find in any lesser work; the author brings his long career as an historian and academician to bear on analyzing everything from economics to war to geography to politics in the shaping the Spain of today.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The discussion of the highly controversial dictator Franco was intensely interesting, as was having a better understanding of the root causes of the Civil War. But so was the entire story from the Visigoths to the Twenty-First Century.

Have you listened to any of Kevin Pierce’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't listened him before, but he gave an incredible performance in spite of his understandably Anglicized enunciation of tons of Spanish words. Getting past those hiccups was a bit distracting, but not much.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The closing chapter, in which specific conclusions are drawn to illustrate what Spain is today and where it might be going, from the perspective of a very intelligent social scientist.

Any additional comments?

The lengthy introduction was tedious but probably necessary in order to establish the author's credibility. The rest of the work was so good that I've given it a couple of listens. Of course, just having traveled through Spain for the first time added to the correlative joy of hearing this. I highly recommend this unique outlook on the history of an amazing culture.

This book is of particular interest to those who are interested in history not only for facts and stories but for an understanding of how things came to pass, not only on the primary level of events but also on the levels of how these are interpreted, transformed and transmitted. It is a very rich work that gives insights into historiography as well as history. I came away feeling enriched in many ways.<br/><br/>The discussion of the Arabic occupation and how it has been seen at different times is alone worth the price of the book to me. I had a rosy vision of a tolerant and cultivated Islamic state that contrasted with the rough and bigoted Christians; this book not only sets the record straight but also explains where this idealized vision comes from. <br/><br/>Do not pass up this book because of negative reviews, though these are right in saying that it is not written for those who want a easy account of the personages and events of Spanish history. The reader is also good, and though he reads foreign words with a pronounced American accent, he does not MISpronounce Spanish words as some reviews suggest (the incomprehensible words they allude to are probably Latin or French). Spanish words are all comprehensible, though the rare French words are seriously mispronounced.

Any additional comments?

The book is quite dense and not a "easy listen". Negative reviewers are not wrong to bring this up, but I am extremely grateful for having listened to it. It gives a wonderful overview of Spanish history with invaluable insights, but it is not a "concise history of Spain" and needs to be complemented by other books if you know little about Spanish and European history. <br/><br/>The author's account of his academic career is both interesting and meaningful in the context of an important subject central to the book: historiography. I CAN understand how a casual listener might be put off by this book, and I would not recommend it to everyone. But to those with a somewhat deeper interest in history, it is a real find.<br/>

This is a good book, for a certain audience. The author is clearly an excellent historian and does a beautiful job laying out a broad history of the country of Spain. However I would term this book more of a commentary on history than an overview or introduction. I am a lover of history with a reasonable general background on most subjects, but I found myself often lost while listening to this book. He does not really lay out the subject in any comprehensive, chronological, or explanatory way, but essentially provides a commentary on Spanish history. If you know little about Spain, this is not a good place to start at all. It would be interesting for a person who already has a strong basic background in Spanish history. Also, if you are picky about proper pronunciation of Spanish names, then you will be disappointed. Furthermore, the first chapter of the book is really more of an autobiography of the author's professional career. It certainly seems his due after a long and distinguished career, but I doubt many will find it very interesting.

I was looking for a basic history of Spain. The book started with hours of the author basically telling the reader about himself, seeming to justify his authority to write the book. He then goes into exhaustive details of Spanish history, presupposing that the reader already has more than a rudimentary knowledge of the subject. For example, he often drops names of obscure people or refers to obscure events as if they were common knowledge to the average reader. Finally, the book doesn't cover its subject in historical order, which in the author's defense was probably not his intention, since he couldn't do so and cover the subject the way he covered it. Bottom line. this is more of a book for readers with more than a casual knowledge of Spanish history looking for greater detail to fill in gaps and answer questions they may have on the subject.

This book NEVER took any shape -- and I listened to the entire work on a long drive. It starts with an hour and a half of the driest academic biography that even the author's mother would not read. Then it rambles on, about various topics, in no clear order. Not a single story or anecdote of any character ever appears. The author clearly KNEW such tales, but he talks in such an unfocused way, you don't even know the era or region under discussion. Only when he got to Franco did any narrative emerge and even that was minimal. <br/><br/><br/><br/>

What about Kevin Pierce’s performance did you like?

Unlike a number of reviewers, I think the narrator was outstanding. He read complex academic writing in a patient but not monotone voice. Perhaps his Spanish pronunciation could have been better, but there was so very little in Spanish, that didn't matter.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The author does have original thoughts and surely was a great professor. The author should have worked with an editor, or even family members, to make this engaging. This work smothered any insight into what should have been fascinating.

This is an astonishingly bad book. It rambles over time in no special order, with long discussions on historiography but without giving more than a sketch of what actually happened. I love history, but I couldn't finish this one.

I was looking for a book on the history of Spain. After plodding through 2 hours of the author's background on how he researched this book, who he met and a list of other books written on Spain, I gave up and decided to get one of the other books. Maybe I gave up too soon, but after the first two hours, I couldn't stand it any longer!

Would you ever listen to anything by Stanley G. Payne again?

No.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Without going into details the book gives a nice overview of major stages in Spain development. An interested reader can look further for a more detailed description of the events. But from the standpoint of universal history this review is fair and balanced.

A narrator who knows how to pronounce Spanish words would have greatly improved this book. Also, less background on why the author decided to study Spain -- it was a very uninteresting hour.

Would you ever listen to anything by Stanley G. Payne again?

I've heard that he is an authority on the comparative history of fascism, so I would give that work a chance. But the amount of ideological axe-grinding he does in this book was a little obnoxious. He couldn't get through the Visigoth period without lashing out at multiculturalists.

How could the performance have been better?

The number one criterion for a good narrator for a book on the history of Spain is being able to pronounce Spanish-language words. Pierce did not meet that criterion. Every time he had to say a Spanish-language word or name, it was cringeworthy. He seems like he would be okay for other audiobooks...but he was not the right person for this job.

I feel like I've been conned by the blurb regarding this book which promised "a balanced, broadly chronological survey of Spanish history from the Visigoths to the present." In fact this is a highly academic work that begins with a self-indulgent, two hour lecture on the author and the development of hispanist history more generally. The author then proceeds to spend more time deconstructing the historiography of Spain than it does telling you anything interesting about what went on in the county's past. It is assumed the reader is already very familiar with the history of Spain and is keen to find out how and why that history came to be told in the way that it is. If you do not meet both of these criteria this may not be the book for you.

16 of 16 people found this review helpful

Tim Gutteridge

Cadiz, Spain

3/3/13

Overall

"Superficial and tendentious"

An idiosyncratic and ultimately disappointing overview of Spain's history by one of the leading modern historians of the country, Payne's analysis is rather superficial; too often, he is satisfied with debunking an 'accepted' version of events, without exploring the questions that an alternative version raises.

For example, Payne dedicates a lot of time to dismissing the motion that the Republican side during the Civil War stood for liberal democracy, but here he is really arguing with pro-Republican political propaganda circa 1937, not with current historiography. And rather than simply railing against the Republic's lack of democratic credentials, he might usefully have explored the question as to why a large part of Spanish liberalism had decided to adopt an authoritarian approach, why a large portion of the Spanish Socialist Party was committed to revolutionary rather than gradualist change and why, uniquely in world history, Spain produced mass radical anarchist movements in both rural and urban settings.

To take another example, Payne is highly critical of the PSOE's controversial decision to politicise the issue of the recent past at the start of the 21st century, but his explanation is far from enlightening. It is, he argues, simply the expression of the dominance of the 'ideology' of political correctness. A more convincing explanation would need to set the decision in the context of the PSOE's economic policies of the time, and the need for the party to establish a clear distinction between itself and its opponents on the right.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

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